Sports of the Times; Profiles In Courage: 2 Spills, 2 Stories

By HARVEY ARATON

Published: February 16, 2006

LINDSEY KILDOW was not the only intrepid woman to challenge the mountain yesterday after it ejected her into a hospital bed Monday.

In the perilous discipline of downhill racing, there are no significant variations of courage: for the most part, you do it or you don't. But let's just say there were more good reasons for Carole Montillet-Carles of France to consider herself lucky to have no shredded ligaments, no broken bones, to convalesce a few extra days rather than take injections to numb her back, strap on a brace for her painfully bruised rib and persuade herself to go back up and ''just think about speed.''

She is 32, married not long ago and, unlike Kildow, chasing no holy grail. Four years ago at the Salt Lake Games, as Carole Montillet, she won the gold medal in the downhill -- and that was four months after being on an Austrian mountain when a friend and teammate, the World Cup super-G champion R?ne Cavagnoud, crashed into a German ski trainer and died.

''It is not everything, but for R?ne, it is something,'' Montillet-Carles said after winning the gold, perspective learned in the most painful way possible.

She had already seen the worst her sport has to offer, and if that wasn't enough to make Montillet-Carles think twice yesterday before locking into her skis, there was always the startling condition of her face.

''Thank God I'm married,'' was the context she came up with after reaching the finish line a few minutes after Kildow.

The difference between the winner, Austria's Michaela Dorfmeister, and Kildow (eighth place) was 1.29 seconds, maybe an eternity in downhill, but it was an indisputable triumph for Kildow's talent, as well as her resolve, 48 hours after being flown by helicopter off the mountain.

Montillet-Carles was 28th, 4.57 seconds behind Dorfmeister. But who was about to blame her for losing time by dwelling on the danger while skiing the middle of the course, in the flats, when there was ''too much time to think'' about Monday's flight to Turin, those panicky moments when ''you feel your arms and legs and just want to make sure that everything can move''?

Who was not going to pick her as the most desirable partner to purchase a time share in a foxhole after she removed the goggles that may have saved her vision when she tumbled coming out of a jump Monday, minutes before Kildow's frightening crash?

Besides multiple facial lacerations, Montillet-Carles had the unmistakable look of an Ali opponent, circa 1966, the swelling so persistent around the left eye that trainers used Band-Aids to pry it open before the race.

And this, according to one of her teammates, Marie Marchand-Arvier, was on a day when ''her face got a lot better, compared to yesterday.''

Just as it was with the Americans and Kildow, the French skiers said they were amazed by Montillet-Carles's bravery, that she forced herself out of bed, much less into the race. A few feet from where Kildow was conducting her interview with the American news media, Montillet-Carles came to explain how she had simulated race condition movements in her athletes' village room, in order to know what would hurt and when.

''Everything hurts, but I knew I had broken nothing, so I wasn't risking anything permanent,'' she said. ''I'm glad that I had the chance to do it. I could not stand the idea of staying in the hotel room and watching the race that way.'' She made a point of adding that, slow as she was yesterday, bad as she looked and felt, she believed she could medal in the super-G.

Whatever we ultimately make of this strange athletic species, here's hoping that around the world the stories of Kildow and Montillet-Carles were told in tandem. Here's hoping that NBC didn't turn Kildow into Hermann Maier minus the medal without at least flashing Montillet-Carles's face of courage.

There is already too much Olympic provincialism disguised as acceptable nationalism going around. Austrian journalists cheered the disqualification of Bode Miller on Tuesday night during the first slalom run of the men's Alpine combined. We all get carried away with our homegrown triumphs and travails, forgetting the point of the festival is to familiarize ourselves with and appreciate the world.

The athletes tend to get this better than the rest of us do. As Montillet-Carles and Kildow did their interviews yesterday, skiers from several other countries passed by, skis on their shoulders. They smiled and saluted.

From the chairlift overhead, a man spotted Montillet-Carles and yelled, ''Carole, I love you!''

She looked up at her admirer through the narrow slits passing for eyes and responded, ''Have you seen my face?''

Her husband, Olivier Carles, a nutritionist, obviously had and recognized that beauty was more than skin deep. Spotting his wife as she exited behind the stands, he walked up beside her. He pressed his cheek against hers. He positioned the camera of his cellphone in front of their faces.

And clicked.

Photos: Carole Montillet-Carles competed in the downhill after crashing Monday. Lindsey Kildow, below, was also hurt in a spill Monday and finished eighth. (Photo by Jeff Haynes/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images); (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)